Is That an R-330Zh Zhitel on the Road in Crimea?

PEREVALNOYE, Crimea — As Russian troops and extralegal militias swiftly seized Crimea from Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin maintained a falsehood. The impressively equipped and disciplined conventional troops that enveloped Ukrainian military bases, he said, were not Russian.

In doing so, the Kremlin missed an opportunity to highlight a significant logistical and strategic success: the broad overhaul of Russian military forces that has been many years in the works. In Crimea, a newly refitted element of the Russian Army was visible in action for the first time.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s army had relied principally on dated equipment and conscripted personnel. To observe Russian units through 2008 was to see a tired and dilapidated force. It was, in the eyes of many Russian veterans, a national shame, even if it easily batted aside an inept Georgian army six years ago.

The rapid-deployment Russian forces that showed up in Crimea were utterly different.

As Tyler Hicks, Noah Sneider and I walked and drove among these remolded Russian units, I snapped images using my iPhone that showed details of a force in the midst of an upgrade – encrypted tactical radios in the hands of low-level troops, new or specialized firearms, and state-of-the-art electronic jamming equipment being transported along the Crimean roads. (When the Russian forces launched operations against Ukrainian bases, phones in the area often went dead.)

The iPhone, though a limited photographic tool, did offer advantages over a traditional camera in the peculiar circumstances of Crimea. Not only was it unobtrusive, but when a phone signal was available I could swiftly email photographs to an inbox, an easy safeguard against Russian troops or the armed men who worked with them who stopped journalists and demanded that images be deleted, a common occurrence on the peninsula in recent weeks. The images could then be posted on Instagram, creating a public record for sources to help analyze.

Here, from that Instagram account, are a series of images of Russian troops and their equipment that show a force emerging from a long period of decrepitude.

This is the first Pecheneg machine gun I have seen in active service. It suggests that Russia’s rapid-deployment units are, as the Kremlin pledged, receiving updated weapons systems.CreditC. J. Chivers/The New York Times

The R-330Zh Zhitel system, when set up - it is shown here in transit, without its antennas extended - can block Iridium, Imarsat GPS satellite signals.CreditC. J. Chivers/The New York Times

The Zhitel was tailed by this new system, which is apparently seeing its Russian military debut action abroad – a Tigr-M MKTK REI PP electronic warfare vehicle. This electronic countermeasure team came at us fast on a remote two-lane road in Western Ukraine. I had time only to turn around and snap quick frames through a rear windshield as we blew past each other, headed in opposite directions. The standard Tigr platform is a 4-x-4 armored vehicle and Russia’s answer to the American Humvee. Judging by the large number of Tigrs seen in Crimea, Russia has been distributing these vehicles to its land forces, at least to high-priority units.

Near the left shoulder of the soldier at right is a small green plastic box. Suspended in front of the soldier’s green face mask is a small microphone on a flexible arm.CreditC. J. Chivers/The New York Times

These are parts of a push-to-talk encrypted two-way radio system that is also part of the “Ratnik” upgrade. (Kudos again to Mr. Boroda for making a quick identification of this system.) Of the many new pieces of military kit seen in Crimea, this may be among the most significant.

We saw these communication devices on what appeared to be noncommissioned officers supervising the Russian rank-and-file. The presence of these radios potentially gives Russian enlisted soldiers more influence and tactical agility than they traditionally have had, and could suggest that Russia’s military overhaul has a doctrinal as well as a logistical and social component.

The soldier at left carries an old Kalashnikov variant that has been equipped with a suppressor, visible at the end of the rifle’s muzzle. Similarly, the soldier at right has slung a VSS suppressed 9-millimeter sniper rifle – typically a mark of an elite Russian unit, but seen here on a soldier on a routine guard rotation.CreditC. J. Chivers/The New York Times

On the soldier at right you can see the new knee pads, elbow pads, helmets, flak jacket and ballistic goggles that are part and parcel of the "Ratnik" changes. The soldier at right also has an apparent USP-1 rifle scope – also not a common sight in Russian troops in the past.CreditC. J. Chivers/The New York Times

All of this equipment is a sign of an army going through major changes, even if its commander-in-chief disowned a country’s freshly refitted forces as they made their debut in the field.